Leo Melamed

Upon entering Leo Melamed's office in the north tower of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Wacker Drive, one can't help but notice the 20-plus framed photos of Melamed with world dignitaries and U.S. presidents on his walls and bookshelves. In one, Melamed, chairman emeritus of CME Group, the Merc's parent, sits with Li Xiannian, then president of the People's Republic of China. On another wall hangs a photo of Melamed and a very young Colin Powell. Another shows Melamed with President Barack Obama,...

Financial futures pioneer and former Chicago Mercantile Exchange chairman Leo Melamed on Tuesday listed his seven-bedroom, contemporary-style brick mansion in east Glencoe for $3.495 million. Melamed, 80, now is on the board of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange successor CME Group and also runs his own consulting firm. "We've been there 36 years and enjoyed every minute of it. Glencoe's a great suburb," Melamed told Elite Street on Wednesday from his winter home in...

In the history of American business, only a few leaders have possessed the vision and energy to shape entire industries or institutions. Henry Ford brought the automobile to the masses. Edwin Land pioneered instant photography. Ray Kroc built the fast-food concept into a major new industry. Some say Leo Melamed should be included in that elite group of entrepreneurs. Melamed gave the world financial futures-contracts to buy such things as foreign currencies, Treasury bills and...

The Chicago Bears have taken Cook County to court over the collection of more than $4.1 million in back amusement taxes and interest the county says the team owes on amenities sold to people in Soldier Field's luxury suites and club seats. And the Chicago Cubs , which are the subject of a county audit, know a similar bill is coming their way soon. But one team, the White Sox, got this matter settled years ago under former Cook County President ...

Leo Melamed, chairman of global futures company Sakura Dellsher Inc., virtually invented the international financial futures market and made Chicago its home. Born in Poland in 1932, he fled the Holocaust with his parents across Russia and Japan to Chicago. Now 64 and the author of a new autobiography, "Escape to the Futures," he was interviewed in his Wacker Drive office while barking sell orders over a speaker phone to associates on the trading floor. Q: Let me...

Upon entering Leo Melamed's office in the north tower of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Wacker Drive, one can't help but notice the 20-plus framed photos of Melamed with world dignitaries and U.S. presidents on his walls and bookshelves. In one, Melamed, chairman emeritus of CME Group, the Merc's parent, sits with Li Xiannian, then president of the People's Republic of China. On another wall hangs a photo of Melamed and a very young Colin Powell. Another shows Melamed with President Barack Obama,...

By In the Loop reported by Christine Badowski, Cindy Barrymore, Brenda Butler and Patrick T. Reardon | February 17, 2002

LAST GOOD MOVIE YOU SAW: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." They did a good job on bringing out the imagery in the book. BOOK YOU'RE READING: "John Adams" by David McCullough. I never knew the power of that man's mind. I guess none of us did. We've always assumed that Thomas Jefferson was the only real intellectual. CD YOU'RE LISTENING TO: In my car, the only recording I have is Frank Sinatra. I'm one of those old fogies. FAVORITE RESTAURANT: Gene & Georgetti, which I've been frequenting for the...

Nathan H. Slutsky, age 78, died peacefully on March 9, 2009 in Scottsdale, AZ, with family close beside him. Son of Soloman and Ruth, nee Lewis, Slutsky. He is survived by his wife, Leah, nee Sattler; loving father to Scott (Julie) Slutsky, Gregg Slutsky and the late Vicki Slutsky; grandfather to Aronn, Sydnei, Sean, Danny, Eric and Adam; loving brother to Sema Frank and the late MarciaBachrach; brother-in-law to Betty and Leo Melamed; uncle to many nieces and nephews. He was a proud...

Leo Melamed, the father of financial futures and the eminence grise of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, has vivid remembrances to this day of his Trans-Siberian Railway journey across the Soviet Union to the port city of Vladivostok more than five decades ago. "I remember the trip well," says Melamed, who boarded the train in Moscow in late 1940 at the age of 7 with his mother, Fayga, and his late father, Isaac, to escape the ratcheting turmoil...

The former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and a current CME Group director sidestepped controversy by resigning this week from a position with a new futures market based in Asia, according to a source familiar with the situation. Leo Melamed accepted the chairmanship of the Singapore Mercantile Exchange's advisory committee last month without notifying fellow directors at CME Group, parent company of the Merc and Chicago Board of Trade. But he did receive approval to...

Two Chicagoans shared a late dinner last Tuesday at the International Club of the Drake Hotel. For most people, it was hardly worth notice that Jack Sandner, dining on fish, and Leo Melamed, who decided on a salad, continued to discuss business following a five-hour meeting of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's executive committee. But for those who follow the comings and goings and shifts of power in Chicago's vital financial district, the scene was remarkable, both familiar and unique.

'I think [Dell] is probably looking closely at this and saying, "This can't be good news for us." ' -- Ben Pring, analyst at research firm Garner Inc. on Hewlett-Packard's talks to acquire EDS 'There certainly is some oversupply [of condos]. If you are in the South Loop or the West Loop, you have some inventory to burn off.' -- Alan Lev, president of Belgravia Group, a Chicago home-building firm 'The Tribune gave this immigrants' kid from Uptown the world, literally, and I'll be forever grateful.

The Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange named 26 members to a new committee charged with considering the consolidation of some exchange operations. The panel, which includes 13 members from each market, will be co-chaired by William O`Connor, Board of Trade chairman, and Leo Melamed, chairman of the Merc's executive committee. Merton Miller, finance professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, was named a public director of the committee.

Futures markets pioneer Leo Melamed and former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III have founded a financial-services company that they hope will capitalize on the growing mergers-and-acquisitions market in China. HuaMei Capital Co. will be half-owned by a Chinese company and 20 percent owned by publicly traded MVC Capital Inc., headed by Michael Tokarz, a former general partner with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Melamed, chairman emeritus of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Stevenson, who...

Leo Melamed, special counsel to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Alger Chapman, chairman of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, are among officials of stock and commodity exchanges, academia and Wall Street firms named to a Securities and Exchange Commission committee to promote development of financial markets in Eastern Europe. Separately, officials of Poland's Ministry of Finance said they hope to have an SEC-like agency in place by the end of the year.

Walter Goldschmidt, a longtime executive with Continental Grain, once one of the largest privately held companies in the world, expanded his company's role in the futures market. Mr. Goldschmidt, 84, died of pneumonia Monday, July 9, in Evanston Hospital, said his son, Jim. "He was one of the first pioneers to bring Continental Grain into futures," said Leo Melamed, former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, who noted the importance of getting a large international concern like...

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for authorization to trade the Nikkei 225 stock index futures contract, Japan's most-followed barometer of stocks. Merc Chairman John F. Sandner said he expects the contract to make its debut next summer. Sandner made the announcement in Tokyo during a 10-day tour of the Far East with Leo Melamed, chairman of the Merc's executive committee and special counsel to the board.

The conservative, free-market "Chicago School" of economics lost its leading thinker Thursday with the death of Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman at age 94. For decades, Friedman tirelessly promoted his belief that private competition works better than government mandates, influencing the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations as well as reform-minded leaders from Chile to China. Friedman's long association with the University of Chicago spawned other Nobel laureates, including Gary...

Bernard Dan, chief executive of the Chicago Board of Trade, stands to reap as much as $19.6 million as the CBOT is acquired by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. That payout was sweetened just months ago by CBOT directors, according to regulatory filings, as buzz of a merger between the exchanges began to build. The timing has raised eyebrows among compensation experts. "Any time they made an increase of a `change of control' provision within a few months of a...